The Role of Information Structure in Language

Change: Introductory Remarks 1

Gisella Ferraresi (Frankfurt /M.) & Rosemarie Lühr (Jena)

The renewed interest in the interaction between ‘information structure’

and grammar is witnessed by many recent publications which try to disen-
tangle the correlation between syntax, prosody and information structure
in modern languages. The aim of this volume is to encourage the discus-
sion of the role of information structure in language change and that of
operationable methods which can be applied on corpus languages when
working on information structure. Correlations between word order and
intonational patterns which, through the question test, enable us to detect
the informativity of a sentence (cf. Sgall et al. 1973), for example, are not
applicable to corpus languages.
Together with discourse semantics, prosody and syntax are the impor-
tant ingredients for the production and interpretation of information
packaging. Different languages, however, make different use of these com-
ponents. German, for example, operates in the first place at the prosodic
level 2 , although it can also make use of marked syntactic constructions like
hanging topics or left dislocation (Frey 2005). In Catalan, on the other
hand, syntactic constituents are moved in order to constitute the corre-
sponding prosodic constituents (Vallduví & Vilkuna 1998). Other lan-
guages again adopt morphological marking. 3
In historical linguistics, the prosodic correlate of syntactic construc-
tions cannot be tested directly. However, it is still possible to reach some
relevant generalizations about the realization of pragmatic categories like
Topic, Focus and their interaction with word order in written texts. This
is facilitated also thanks to the intensive research in the last years of the
mapping of pragmatic categories in syntax – an interest which has as-

1 Some of the papers contained in this volume have been read at the workshop ‘The role of
information structure on language change’ during the annual DGfS Conference held at the
University of Siegen (Germany) in 2007.
2 For a discussion on the prosodic correlates of Topic and Focus in German see Féry (1993);
Uhmann (1991)
3 See also. u.a. Jacobs (1984); Uhmann (1991).

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2 Gisella Ferraresi & Rosemarie Lühr

sumed an important role in formal syntactic theories as well. Chomsky

(1995), for example, recognizes that the interface between syntax and
discourse is realized in the CP. Likewise coached in generative grammar,
the so-called cartographic model (Rizzi 1997 a.o.) holds Topic and Focus
to be realized in precise syntactic positions in a split CP. In Rizzi (1997)
the CP is therefore further distinguished in
(1) Force TOP FOC FinP
From a diachronic point of view, many structural changes which involve
the left periphery can in this way be put down to changes in the mapping
of pragmatic information onto syntax. For the ancient Indo-European
languages, Kiparsky (1995) assumes a structural differentiation between
Topic and Focus. His proposal is based on Hale's assumption that topic
and wh-elements move to different positions in these languages (Kiparsky
1995: 253):
(2) S'' (=CP)
3

TOPIC S'
XPi 3

FOCUS S
XPii 3

ti tii
In ancient Indo-European languages verb fronting is a strategy of empha-
sis, whereas clause typing is achieved by particles and sentence prosody.
Therefore verb-second phenomena are the rule neither in old Germanic
nor in old Romance languages 4 . Gothic, for example, shows a rich array of
particles – albeit more limited than other ancient Indo-European lan-
guages like Ancient Greek –, many of which induce fronting of the finite
verb depending on the clause type on the one hand and on the informa-
tional status of the moved element on the other (cf. Ferraresi 2005). Verb
movement is found regularly only in imperative clauses. In Old High
German and Old English, some of the corresponding particles are still
attested (Axel 2007; Fuß & Trips in print; Kemenade & Los 2009). How-
ever, verb movement in Old High German declarative sentences is more
and more generalized, for example in verb-first structures (cf. Hinterhölzl,
Petrova & Solf 2005), especially in so-called thetic sentences. There, it has
the function of introducing a new discourse referent while changing the
discourse situation, nevertheless maintaining the narration line. Verb-

4 See a.o. Ferraresi & Goldbach (2002) for Old French, Axel (2007) for Old High German.

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 Introductory Remarks 3

second word order, on the other hand, has the function of introducing a
new referent, which predominantly appears in the first position. In de-
clarative main clauses of Modern German, this word order has been gen-
eralized and has become the unmarked one after different discourse parti-
cles have got lost. In this sense, the question arises if there really is a transi-
tion from discourse-oriented to syntax-oriented languages and, if so, if this
transition always takes place in that direction. According to Givón (1979:
98), the word order in the “pragmatic mode” is mostly governed by prag-
matic principles, while the word order in the “syntactic mode” displays
“case functions”. The degree of accessibility or activation of a discourse
referent of a certain phrase, e.g. the correlation with the grammatical func-
tion (obliqueness hierarchy: subject > object1 > object2 > ... > adjuncts),
actuality, definiteness (cf. Givon 1983; Gundel, Hedberg & Zacharski
1993) is, however, influenced by many different factors. Semantic salience
is in any case relevant for the analysis of information structure in ancient
Indo-European languages, as it allows for a differentiation between dis-
course-oriented and syntax-oriented languages (Givón 1979). Personal
pronouns, for example, often appear in the topic position in Old Indic,
even though ancient Indo-European languages are subject-pro-drop and
partially object-pro-drop languages (Luraghi 2003; Lühr 2005; Keydana
2009). Functional tests, especially those operating on the level of text de-
velopment, in this way allow hypotheses on the informational status of a
linguistic unit since they can be supported by semantic determination.
The investigation of corpus languages can also cast light on synchronic
issues in modern languages. There is some significance, for example, in the
fact that Ancient Indic marks contrastive focus specifically (Lühr 2009),
supporting the differentiating analysis between New Information and
Contrastive Focus against the unified semantic interpretation of focus
(Rooth 1992; Krifka 1993; 2007), according to which focus always evokes
a set of alternatives. This differentiation is necessary as the intonations of
these two foci differ from each another also in modern languages like in
German (Kiss 1998; Steube 2002; Späth 2007). In the data material of
corpus languages it is thus possible to define which type of focus is real-
ized 5 . According to Umbach (2004), it is unclear how the alternatives are
contextually restricted in case of a purely semantically determined focus.
Consequently, it has to be assumed that every sentence adds information
to the preceding one; this is why continuation sentences are subdivided
into established information and new information. The established infor-
mation is usually expressed via definite nominal or prepositional groups
(with definite articles in German and Greek), possessive pronouns or per-

5 For a good overview of the different categories cf. Féry & Krifka (2008).

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4 Gisella Ferraresi & Rosemarie Lühr

sonal pronouns or via anaphorical, often deictic expressions. Among these,

the Aboutness Topic is typically a referential DP. Still, the topic may be
contrast-focussed and thus be a Contrastive Topic. As compared to the
topic, the focus is related to a specific domain, the focus domain. As long
as no contrast foci are present, the focus domain includes new informa-
tion. Under certain circumstances, the background needs to be added; it
usually consists of the established information outside the focus do-
main.To determine the topic, the approach in Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl
(2007) is promising, as Aboutness Topics, Contrastive Topics and Famil-
iar Topics are dealt with separately, which are all operationalizable prag-
matical categories that can be found in non-Indoeuropean languages as
well (Ermisch 2007).
When questions are answered in the text itself in corpus languages, a
solicited New Information Focus is involved. To determine the unsolic-
ited New Information Focus (new discourse referents as well as new rela-
tions between given discourse referents) in narrative texts, a question can
be formed that is as universal as possible and that is based on established
material (Petrova & Solf 2009 on the quaestio-thesis by Klein & von Stut-
terheim (1987). Still, when studying ancient Indo-European languages,
this procedure can only be a possible test in addition to semantic analyses,
e.g. in connection to Dik's (1989: 268) strategies for the introduction of a
new discourse referent:
1. meta-linguistic information: ‘I’m going to tell you a story about
X’
2. as an object or second argument in sentences with transitive verbs:
‘In …, we saw X’
3. as a subject of “an existential or presentation construction” of the
type: ‘Once upon a time, there lived/was …’; such constructions
are typical of sentences initializing a text
4. with verbs of movement indicating an “appearing on the scene”:
‘Suddenly, right before our eyes, X appeared …’ (Petrova & Solf
2009).
To be able to comment, in a second step, on the part of the linguistic
system of an ancient Indo-European language which concerns the infor-
mation structure, the analysis units of information structure first have to
be synchronically determined and to be assigned to the language material.
When one has undertaken several synchronic sections, diachronic proc-
esses become evident and explicable as well. Moreover, comparing differ-
ent languages makes language-specific and general traits of information
structure in ancient Indo-European languages become apparent. As men-
tioned above, however, the study of ancient Indo-European languages can
support the analysis of modern ones.

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 Introductory Remarks 5

These are only some of the problems which one is exposed to when
working on pragmatic categories in corpus languages, and which the con-
tributions of this volume partly address. The papers analyse different phe-
nomena of language change connected to information structure in many
different old languages and language families, applying some of the tech-
niques described above for corpus languages. The languages analyzed in
the papers belong to the Uto-Aztecan (Armendáriz), Vedic (Viti), Slavic
(Matić), Romance (Gabriel & Rinke, Eide) and Germanic language fami-
lies (Wratil, Westergaard, Petrova & Hinterhölzl). The phenomena con-
sidered range from word order to pronouns and verb movement.
The paper ‘Information structure, constituent order, and case marking
in Warihío’ by Rolando Féliz Armendáriz discusses word order in Wari-
hío, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Mexico. The methods applied for
this study are both text analysis and direct elicitation. Armendáriz shows
that syntactic accounts are not sufficient for understanding the principles
underlying the various patterns of word order in Warihío. He therefore
proposes a pragmatic explanation based on Lambrecht (1994). Accord-
ingly, focus determines the fronting of constituents, while topical material
usually follows. The analysis is mainly conducted on a synchronic level, as
Warihío does not possess a long written tradition that permits a recon-
struction of previous linguistic stages. However, Armendáriz indicates that
some diachronic evolution is observable in the use of a suffix, which is
shifting from a syntactic to a pragmatic function of signalling definiteness.
Carlotta Viti's paper ‘The information structure of the OVS order in
Vedic’ discusses OVS word order in Vedic, which is marginally attested in
the Rig-Veda, the earliest Vedic text, and completely unattested in the
subsequent Indian linguistic varieties. Owing to this fact, OVS has been
considered as being an exception to the basic SOV word order, related to
the poetic register of the Rig-Veda. However, data point out that OVS is
consistently used to convey a certain type of information structure, where
the referent of the object is more topical (i.e. human, specific, definite,
persistent, etc.) than the referent of the subject. Accordingly, the syn-
chronic rarity and the diachronic disappearance of the OVS order are due
to the fact that its information structure has fewer chances to appear in
discourse.
In their article ‘Information packaging and the rise of clitic-doubling
in the history of Spanish’, Christoph Gabriel & Esther Rinke investigate
the diachronic development of clitic-doubling (CD) in Peninsular Span-
ish. They show how this construction differs from structures with right-
dislocated objects (clitic right dislocation; CLRD). Besides prosodic and
syntactic differences, both structures differ in their informational status. In
CLRD constructions, a right-dislocated object is separated from the core

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6 Gisella Ferraresi & Rosemarie Lühr

sentence by a prosodic boundary being located in a position outside vP,

whereas in CD constructions a nominal or strong pronominal object
forms, together with a co-referential clitic pronoun, one prosodic domain
– the doubled object remains in its vP-internal base position. Here, object
clitics function as agreement markers. As for information structure, the
main difference between CLRD and CD constructions is that in a CLRD
structure the object constitutes a dislocated topic, whereas in CD con-
structions it belongs to the focus domain. In modern Spanish, elements
displaying a high degree of ‘topicality’, such as pronouns, definite noun
phrases, experiencer arguments and proper names, are more likely doubled
than those situated lower in the topicality hierarchy. This seems to con-
firm that CD constructions follow the topic hierarchy given by Givón
(1976). As a whole, contexts with obligatory CD are quite rare and the
appearance of the clitic is due to optionality as it is in modern Peninsular
Spanish. In the early periods, in the 12th and 13th centuries, resumptive
clitics appear in texts that reflect spoken language. However, such exam-
ples are far from being systematic or obligatory. Resumptive clitics become
more and more frequent, especially during the 16th century. Gabriel &
Rinke agree with Fontana (1993) that CD should be analyzed as an
agreement phenomenon. They provide evidence from texts from the 15th
up to the 18th century for the assumption that there was a diachronic
tendency from more topical to less topical elements to co-occur with a
resumptive clitic, whereby a topicalization strategy (clitic right dislocation)
was reanalyzed into a doubling structure. The reason behind this devel-
opment is that right dislocation is more marked and less economic than
CD.
The paper ‘Cue-based acquisition and information structure drift in
diachronic language development’ by Marit Westergaard evaluates infor-
mation structure from another point of view. Within a model of language
acquisition and change which recognizes the importance of cues and so-
called ‘micro-cues’ in the primary linguistic data (PLD) that children are
exposed to, she shows that information structure may be a factor for word-
order change. Following Lightfoot (1999, 2006) she assumes that there is
a UG requirement for cues to be obligatory in children's I(nternalized)-
language grammars. Westergaard analyses word-order variation that is
dependent on linguistically relevant sub-categories as pertaining to the I-
language. The data from English and Scandinavian languages present
mixed grammars which allow two different subject or object positions.
One of the positions is preferred for discourse-given elements (typically
pronouns) and the other for informationally new or focused elements
(typically heavier elements such as full DPs or clauses). The paper shows
that word order variation is relatively common in present-day grammars,

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 Introductory Remarks 7

whereby the choice of a word-order is at least partly dependent on infor-

mation structure. In accordance with Behaghel, Westergaard demonstrates
that discourse-given elements, typically pronouns, appear in a high posi-
tion, whereas informationally new or focused elements stay in a lower
position. Historical data, too, attest that word order variation based on
mixed VO/OV is caused by information structure. With respect to child
language, Westergaard demonstrates on the basis of Norwegian and Rus-
sian data that children have an early sensitivity to patterns of information
structure, producing both word orders in a more or less target-consistent
way in e.g. Norwegian wh-question and subject-shift constructions. In the
second part of her paper, Westergaard investigates the realization of sub-
jects and objects in a sample of Norwegian conversational speech and in a
sample of Norwegian and English child-directed speech. The results show
a clear preference of putting discourse-given information in subject posi-
tion and discourse-new or focused information in object position. Thus,
for mixed word orders where the choice depends on information structure,
word orders linked to informationally given (typically pronominal) sub-
jects should be naturally frequent in the E-language. Word orders linked
to new or focused (full DP) subjects should be correspondingly infre-
quent. For mixed grammars involving two object positions, the situation
should be the other way round. The mixed word order system should be
easily learnable, and from an acquisition perspective such grammars
should also be relatively stable diachronically. However, in this scenario
the input varies, since not all children are exposed to exactly the same
linguistic data. The low frequency of a construction may fall below the
threshold for acquisition in some children, who will develop a grammar
with only one subject or object position. The decline in the frequency of
word order would be the crucial factor for change. Certain developments
can be reversed if external factors and/or internal language development
cause the PLD to change as in some present-day Norwegian dialects,
where the interference from the standard language seems to cause a return
from non-V2 to V2 word order.
In his contribution ‘Discourse and syntax: the decline of postverbal
topics in Serbo-Croat’, Dejan Matić deals with a word order change that
cannot be attributed to syntactic processes and is therefore impossible to
phrase in terms of competing grammatical choices. Postverbal topical sub-
jects (PTS), i.e. subjects with topical interpretation placed to the right of
the verb, have been attested throughout the history of Serbo-Croat (SC)
and seem to be as frequent and of the same range of functions until the
19th century. These constructions are a) inversion, a verb-second-like
construction in which subjects appear postverbally after a fronted wh-
word, relative pronoun, quote, and a fronted focus, b) vS, a construction

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8 Gisella Ferraresi & Rosemarie Lühr

with a focused postverbal subject, c) VsX, a construction with a topical

postverbal subject. They differ in intonation contour, position of sentence
adverbials, position of the subject relative to the copula/auxiliary and func-
tion as continuous topics. During the 20th century, the frequency and
variability of PTSs rapidily declined, even though speakers are still ready
to construe all types of clauses with PTSs like the ones attested in the
sources from the 19th century. The reasons for this language change are a
number of interrelated sociolinguistic factors, initiated by pragmatic
changes. In the 20th century, sixty to seventy per cent of all instances of
PTSs are more or less petrified verb-subject collocations, which are regu-
larly used in a particular discourse function. Matić suggests to introduce a
process of automatisation into the repertoire of diachronic changes, a kind
of binding of syntactic structure to certain lexemes. The only change be-
tween the 19 and the 20th centuries that seems to have led to something
resembling a categorical difference is the change in the function of VsX
clauses with PTSs, which are no longer markers of resultative and consecu-
tive events in narratives. The syntax remains unchanged, only discourse-
organization principles change.
Kristine Eide, in her paper ‘Prosody, information structure and word
order change in Portuguese’, considers the word-order changes which have
taken place in the period from Classical Portuguese to Modern European
Portuguese, which – according to Eide – have their reason in a prosodi-
cally driven change of discourse patterns. This change caused a fixation of
the subject in the preverbal position, which then developed from a topic
position to a more neutral one. Classical Portuguese is a language with
topic-verb-XP structure, in which inversion takes place in case the first
position is not occupied by the subject. Eide observes a decrease in the
postverbal position of subjects of unaccusative verbs which represent old
information. Topics in Classical Portuguese always move to the beginning
of the sentence, whereas the rest of the background follows the finite verb.
This creates many inversion structures, in case the topic is not a subject. In
Modern European Portuguese only new information can occur postver-
bally.
Melani Wratil's paper ‘The development of imperative V-to-C
movement in the West Germanic and Romance Languages’ contributes to
the discussion about the movement of the imperative into the C-position.
In the Indo-European languages the imperative as a directive speech act
constitutes a genuine directive operator represented by a zero-expression.
With respect to head movement, imperative and indicative behave in the
same way. In VSO languages they occupy the regular clause-initial posi-
tion, in SVO languages they are positioned immediately after the subject,
and in SOV languages they appear in sentence-final position. But in the

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 Introductory Remarks 9

West Germanic SOV languages, as for example in German, as well as in

the West Germanic SVO languages, as for example in Yiddish, imperative
verbs normally precede their complements and adjuncts. Here, the excep-
tional structure of the West Germanic and Romance imperatives is a result
of the emergence of V2 phenomena. Root clauses are reanalyzed as V2
structures as soon as the finite auxiliary or lexical verb follows an initial
focalized or topicalized constituent in the second position, whereby the
fronted focus phrases are considered as the scope-marking specifier of a
new functional projection CP. The V2 properties of the modern West
Germanic and Romance languages are strongly connected with the rise of
V1 clauses. V1 structures are the structural outcome of a focalization
process. Head movement with imperative verbs had been solidified by
analogy with the finite verbs of V1 interrogative and declarative clause
before V2 structures became basic structures. Wratil shows why especially
the V1 structures of imperative clauses and therefore the imperative verb
movement to C has been able to survive in the West Germanic and Ro-
mance languages up to this day. In modern Standard English, in all non-
negated and non-emphasized imperative clauses V-to-C movement applies
at LF, whereas in negative and emphasized affirmative imperative clauses
do moves to C before Spell out.
In their paper ‘Evidence for two types of focus positions in Old High
German’, Svetlana Petrova & Roland Hinterhölzl – using data from the
Old High German Tatian translation – propose a basic VO order and an
informational account in explaining word-order variation in subordinate
clauses in Old High German. This view is in contrast with two other posi-
tions found in the theoretical discussion on basic word order in (old)
Germanic languages. The first one is based on a basic OV order with dif-
ferent possible extraposition movement operations, the other one assumes
two underlying base orders, which are due to different grammars (the so-
called ‘Double Base Hypothesis’). Petrova & Hinterhölz's argumentation
is supported by a battery of syntactic tests which show a contradictory
picture for both hypotheses. These tests include the analysis of materials
following the finite verb in subordinate clauses, such as DPs with different
functions, PPs, predicative adjectives or nouns, Verb Raising and Verb
Projection Raising. Root patterns (Verb-first and Verb-second) in subor-
dinate clauses do not confirm the hypothesis of root patterns, either. The
information-structural approach proposed in this paper considers the dis-
tribution of background material in comparison to asserted information
and narrow focus patterns. Background materials tend to occupy the
Wackernagel position, which in subordinate clauses is the position imme-
diately following the subordinating conjunction. In most of the cases,
pronouns in the corpus data are positioned in the Wackernagel position

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10 Gisella Ferraresi & Rosemarie Lühr

also against the Latin original. A similar observation is made for accessible
or discourse-anaphoric full lexical phrases: they are moved from a postver-
bal position to the position after C°. In postverbal position of subordinate
clauses, arguments of the verb and non-finite parts of complex verbal pre-
dicates are considered. Arguments in postverbal positions represent new
information, non-finite parts of complex verbal predicates constitute the
asserted part of the proposition; in particular it is shown in the paper that
contrastive focus regularly appears left-adjacent to the finite verb. Petrova
& Hinterhölzl propose a structure where the verb moves to the head of a
Focus phrase at the left edge of the middle field. Whereas contrastive ele-
ments move to SpecFoc, new objects remain in the scope of the focus
head.
Last but not least, we would like to thank all our authors, who cooper-
ated with us with great patience. We also thank the series editors, above all
Anita Steube. Many thanks also to the person in charge of linguistics,
Heiko Hartmann, as well as to Andreas Brandmair at de Gruyter's, who
assisted us in all steps of the publication process.

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